SAFE House is like your average brick garage - it's solid, sturdy and does the job, but ultimately it's nothing special.

Maybe it's the sense of deja vu about it. It feels like a mash-up of the CIA machinations of Body Of Lies, the close-quarters fisticuffs and on-the-run spy games of the Bourne series, and one of those Tony Scott films with Denzel Washington in it (but much less stylised).

So it's a serviceable espionage thriller, but nothing about it stands out too much, despite having good performances from a strong cast.

Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a lowly CIA agent desperate to climb the ladder, but he's stuck in a South African safe house - a rarely used secret base for the CIA that's kept operational "just in case".

He finally gets some action when fellow agents arrive with Tobin Frost (Washington), a former top CIA operative who went rogue 10 years ago and is suspected of trading secrets with the enemy.

But it's more action than even the incredibly bored Weston wanted to see - someone else is after Frost and the safe house is no longer safe, forcing Frost and Weston to go on the run together to find out the truth.

Re ynolds and Washington handle the physicality and mental aspects of their respective roles well, Espinosa's direction goes with the handheld camerawork and washed-out look that are now de rigeur for post-Bourne spy films, and the action sequences have plenty of impact.

It's hard to shake the feeling that the script would have ended up as a straight-to-DVD release with a lesser cast - there aren't any painfully noticeable holes in the plot and it moves well enough, but it's a bit run-of-the-mill.

Certainly not a bad film, but neither is it an exceptional one.